I started modelling with my Dad's train set when I was younger and I remember he had a couple of Railway Modellers. One included a slate mine and the other a pool of water with a rusty wheel in it. They were very inspirational at the time so recently I found the slate mine and bought a copy of the magazine. It was March 1985.

Time has moved on and my modelling skills are considerably better but I still like slate mine layouts.

My early inspiration was european based, and came from pictures of a 1978 issue of the Roco catalog. They had loads of very detailed model railroad photo's inside the catalog pages, much nicer than you would typically find, and it got me modeling in N scale , german / swiss border (I needed an excuse be be able to run a Swiss railway articulated loco the Crocodile, my all time favorite electric locomotive).
The hobby changed, my interests too, and by 1990 I had changed to HO scale, US,and do that to this date.

I started age 3 when my dad bought a train set he mounted on a broken down crate he obtained from work. My mum says I was the excuse he needed, Scalelectrix followed the next year! Model boats came later.
I started modelling from an early age, mainly scenery and buildings and was a member of a school model railway club.
Hornby catalogues were worn out many times over the years.
My first real layout on proper raised baseboards was at 12, I had the wood for my Christmas present.
I had always been interested in all thing North American, that was boosted by one of a series of childrens books on model railways where OO scale people were alive, it had US models over for a visit including a Bigboy.
At about 16 I changed to US models. At that age I started work so could afford to start buying US stuff, Athearn blue box etc.
At 17 I joined a local club, where I learnt a lot and started taking part in exhibitions.
My first visit to a US model shop, Victors, was at 19 and I haven't looked back since!
Another big inspiration was the Dobwalls Forrest Railroad, which was only a half hour drive, a miniature ride on model of the Rio Grande and Sherman hill routes I visited many times. Sadly now all gone (mostly to Australia).

There have been (model) railways in my household all my life!
Even the shop my dad owned was alongside the railway line, so we used to see the trains passing.
My dad had some OO Hornby Dublo models, set up on a 6' x 3' board, which as we grew older, was added too.
It was an all British affair at the time, there being a couple of model shops in the small town where I lived.
My first layout was when I was 16, and was N scale, again British, and I was put off a lot by the (non)quality of the stuff (Graham Farish!).
Then I discovered Fleischmann, Minitrix and other German companies, and for the next 25 years that was it.
Regular visits to both Germany and Switzerland fuelled my interest, especially the older German loco's, such as the BR118 and 194, along with the Swiss Crocodiles.
The US stuff didn't come until 1998, although I remember some old Ian Allan Trainspotters Annuals from the late 1960's, with pictures of Rio Grande and SP steamers, and whilst I loved the Cab Forwards, actually having any as a model is still a (distant) dream.

After many years of Tri-ang Hornby as a child, It was David Jenkinson's excellent, if somewhat mis-titled book, "Modelling Historic Railways" that got me back into railway modelling when I came across it in an Exeter library in 1985. I borrowed it for six months on the trot, and read it from cover to cover many, many times.

He showed how to model a real place and make the trains have a purpose, a revelation to me, and something that immediately caught my attention.

All of the ideas contained in the book were so similar to a lot of the stuff that people like Allen McLelland, Bill Darnaby and Tony Koester were going on about in the US at the same time.

Following modelling a section of the Glasgow-Aberdeen route in N, circa 1964, I went happily to The Dark Side of American HO when we visited California in 2000.

A Tri-ang train set, with a Jinty, 2 wagons and a brake van as my combined Christmas and birthday present as a child, then a Tri-ang CKD Princess Elizabeth the next year, set up on a 6'by4' chipboard base with no buildings started it off.
Fast forward the video of life several decades now. My younger brother is to blame for my return to the hobby; he decided to appropriate my trainset for his son without so much as a by-your-leave so the spare room was given over to the layout. I joined the local MRC and was introduced to German stock but couldn't afford it, but bought some Athearn blue box kits and an SD45 at a show. The rest, as they say, is history

Hornby Dublo 3 rail at age 5, set up on a hardboard sheet with the track screwed down - my mother's table still had the scratches 55 years later. layout developed in bedroom as a teenager.
College, marriage and family led to a modelling break. Next layouts in a shed before a move to the North East enabled me to use a garage to develop Whitley Bay Quayside and to achieve one of my modelling ambitions - an article in a mainstream magazine.http://whitleybayquayside.wordpress.com/

The layout was based on a depot and I spent many hours with Lima locos changing wheels, adding additional pick-ups and detailing to get the appearance and running qualities I desired.
In 2002 we had a family holiday in Florida on the way back to the airport we were stopped in traffic on a bridge overlooking what I now know is Taft Yard just south of Orlando. Shunting was taking place, the locos were huge and the two freights I saw were huge.

In 2003 we went back to Florida, we hired a third car so that when family went to the mall or theme parks, I went exploring the rail system with still and video cameras. I also visited Colonial Hobbies - what a place. I had my first demo of DCC and I heard my first sound loco.

WOW - I was hooked

12 wheel pick up, 12 wheel drive and superb detail.

After Whitley Bay Quayside was photographed for a ModelRail article, I sold off all the stock and started planning my Taft Yard layout.
Further visits to the West Coast USA and railfanning visits to places like Fullerton, Cajon Pass, Coachella Valley, Colton Yard, San Diego and San Bernadino have maintained my interest and enthusiasm.

Downsizing after the children flew the nest gave me the space to develop Taft Yard, retirement gave me the time and finance to abandon Taft Yard and develop my present layout, Kaley Yard.

Having loitered as "maineu18b" since signing up to the forum I have finally identified myself - it turns out that I am actually Alf Milliken, and hae amended my signature to more accurately identify both myself and my interests.

It all started with a Brittain's mayzak Jinty - a plain push along broadly to OO gauge/scale I guess. It was a present from my dad when my yiunger sister was born - to go with the Ian Allen ABC on LMR locos that my daytime carers gave me. I was 2 years and 7 months! There must have been something before that to have sparked my interest but I cannot remember anything beyond that day my mother was taken off to hospital to have my sister (but I suspect it was my mother taking me in the push chair alongside the railway line between Teddington and Strawberry Hill - there was a daily goods train then in the 1950s).

Clockwork O (Hormby) followed one Christmas not long after that plus Lonestar OOO and then in 1958 or 1959 my first electric train set - Tri-ang TT. Bec kits followed when I was in my teens but sold it all to pay for our honeymoon.....

Once married I got started scratch-building BR Southern Region coaches from drawings in magazines and my first loco, a Wills M7 from Bill Eaglesham at MG Sharp when they were still in Glasgow. US outline came along later in 1994 during a holiday in Florida. The rest is a slippery slope to where I am today, still buying tunnelmotors!